Tuesday Time-Waster: Virtual LA Marathon (and Boston links)

The Boston Marathon is next Monday, and I’ll be tracking diligently working all morning. A few friends and my uncle are running it, and I’m looking forward to all the coverage.

But I’ll have more about Boston in a couple paragraphs, because today’s Tuesday Time-Waster is about another large marathon. In the spirit of racing, the LA Times in March created a fun interactive LA Marathon graphic. You enter your marathon time (I had to enter a pace, too, to get it to work correctly), pick your opponents, and then click “Run!” to see how fast you are in comparison.

The good news: I beat chef Gordon Ramsey by 45 seconds (though we won’t talk about who would win in a cooking contest). The bad news: If I ever have to out-run a California grizzly bear, I’m doomed. It turns out, those lumbering beasts can run about 20 minutes faster than world record.

I'm the turquoise dot, running neck and neck with Gordon Ramsay's red dot. We left Freddie Prinze Jr. behind, but a bear as well as a bus beat us...

Getting back to the Boston Marathon, here’s a list of the starting times. If you’re speedy and your name is Norman, then you start at 10 a.m. Eastern time, which means I won’t even be at work yet. If you’re my uncle Pete who recently dominated a 5k, you start at 10:50 a.m. To find a runner’s bib number and wave, go here. To track up to 10 athletes and get alerts on their progress, there are free iPhone and Android apps that you can get in the app store by searching for “Boston Marathon” or via this link. Live online coverage will be shown here — and that’s when I’ll be saying, “I need a third monitor!” (Yes, I have first-world problems.)

To those of you running Boston, have a wonderful race. To those of you, like me, who dream of qualifying, do not give up. After all, at least we don’t have to run from a California grizzly.